The trend for many Association Management Systems is to try to wrap everything they can into one package. Need a website? Here’s a website builder! Need online communities? Let’s turn on that module!

However, just because a system CAN do something, doesn’t mean it SHOULD. Furthermore, the needs of your association or non-profit may still require customization that the all-in-one approach just can’t manage.

Here is some helpful advice as you’re evaluating how to manage multiple technology needs and your AMS’ capabilities.

Always Request a Demo

It may seem boring to sit through an hour of training on a tool you may not even purchase, but live demos do a lot more than online videos and spec sheets. It’s easy to gloss over specific functionality online and use words like “customizable” when describing features. It isn’t until you get into a live demo that you can ask specific questions about how customizable certain features really are. You also have the opportunity to take the presenter off-script and dive deep on features that may be at the core of your association’s technology requirements.

Data Can Still Be Used from Outside Sources

Event registrations give great data on member engagement. Using an AMS that includes registration capabilities at its fullest capacity will provide tons of info that you can make business decisions based on. But what happens when you need a research tool or new member product that just can’t be created easily in your AMS? Just because the system is stand-alone doesn’t mean the data can’t be regularly imported into your member database. Look for ways to integrate usage statistics, financial transactions and more from other systems to get a more complete view of your members’ activities.

Consider Your Internal Resources

Association management systems like iMIS, may have far-reaching capabilities but adding new features and functions within the system may place undue burden on database managers instead of subject matter experts. You don’t want to turn your market research analyst into a database manager any more than you want to turn your member services director into a webmaster. Even when combining multiple features into one system, be mindful of the culture of your organization and the roles that each team member plays.

All-in-One Is Often Not the Best Budgetary Decision

When larger AMSs offer a module or add-on approach, it can feel like that is the only way to go and since you’re “already there” you may as well just sign up for their solution. Much like going to the movies though, you could be paying a premium for something just because it’s convenient. Many tools and online services offer APIs and easy integrations. So choosing an expensive, embedded email marketing tool over something like mailchimp may not offer your organization any additional data benefit, while costing you significantly more money. Similarly, there is a wide variety of free website content management systems available with minimal added costs for hosting. Paying a hefty subscription fee for a website module that offers only a fraction of the design flexibility likely doesn’t make good financial sense.

Centralized Is Only One Answer

It may sound great in theory to house everything in one place, but a closer look shows that 3rd party tools definitely have their place. Be sure to evaluate all of your options and reach out to us if you have questions!

Whether you win the award or not, the value of your effort doesn’t have to stop there. From a marketing perspective, the time you’ve spent on your submission has a number of other applications, allowing you to take better advantage of your investment. Here are just a few ways you can capitalize on your award submission.

Get Published

Going through the motions on an award submission forces you to identify the unique aspects of your project and explain them in a concise way. That’s what media contacts are looking for as well! Getting press for receiving an award is often less likely than getting press for delivering a unique project. Take the story you crafted and make it relevant for the media, regardless of the award outcome.

Share the Project with Your Audience

You’ve already written descriptions and gathered the best photos, now get an html email together, add the project to your website, write a blog post about it, etc. Don’t hold your breath waiting for an award before you share the work you’re most proud of!

Involve the Client

As a designer, you may feel great about winning an award, but what about the client? Whether residential, commercial or government, any building occupant would love to know that a.) you think their building is so nice it should be up for an award and b.) it actually won one. Keep them in the loop early, share your submittal with them for feedback and even influence them to share good news amongst their media contacts or colleagues. Getting client feedback during the award process may even uncover some unique benefits about how the building functions that you didn’t think about.

Submit It Again

The final, and perhaps easiest, piece of advice is to repurpose your award submission for another contest or event. Maybe there is a trade-specific contest, a neighborhood home and garden tour, or even an online design contest or forum. There is bound to be another opportunity to update your submission and adjust it to meet another set of requirements. Good luck!

]]>http://markitectureconsulting.com/2017/12/05/how-to-make-the-most-of-award-submissions/feed/0How Do I Increase My Chances of Getting Published?http://markitectureconsulting.com/2017/11/13/how-do-i-increase-my-chances-of-getting-published/
http://markitectureconsulting.com/2017/11/13/how-do-i-increase-my-chances-of-getting-published/#respondMon, 13 Nov 2017 06:09:13 +0000http://markitectureconsulting.com/?p=1612Proactive marketing and communications can be a tough concept to grasp at times. Beyond having a nice website and responding to RFPs, what other outreach is your firm actually supposed to be doing? One thing that everyone understands though, is getting published. It’s generally an immediate request when we meet with firms for the first time to discuss a communications strategy. So, how does the typical firm get coverage for their work and expertise?

Here are some of our tips to help you catch the eye of the media.

Be realistic about what’s noteworthy. New projects and groundbreakings may get small mentions, but unless there is something truly unique about the project, those won’t get a lot of media attention. Identify projects or story angles from the perspective of an editor that’s trying to create great content on a deadline. What would they be proud to write about?

Look beyond the big names. Not every project belongs in Dwell or Architectural Record. That doesn’t make them less important, it just means they aren’t a great fit. Often clients seek those out as the epitome of a great placement when in fact their target audience may not even read those pubs.

Expertise is just as important as experience. You don’t have to receive a full project write-up to get media coverage for your firm. If you have subject matter expertise on your team that has key input in a newsworthy issue, your firm can still get the mention and the opportunity to build awareness as an expert.

Develop relationships. What if a reporter or editor called on you regularly for answers to industry questions? It happens! Blind press release distribution doesn’t do the trick though. Finding publications that are in alignment with your firm’s brand and developing long-term relationships with business colleagues does.

Awards are for you to promote. Winning design awards earns the respect of your peers and your clients alike. They help tell the story of your expertise more often than they are a story on their own though. Additionally, remember that many awards are sponsored by publications already, so the likelihood of another (potentially competing) publication picking up the story is diminished.

So you finally have the robust mailing list that you’ve always wanted. Maybe it was a successful trade show, maybe it was great a social media campaign — but regardless of how it happened, it is a great start. But what now?

While it’s true that having an audience is crucial for your firm, coming up with what kinds of messages you want to send to your mailing list is a very important next step. Email campaigns work more often than you think. In fact, a recent study from YES lifecycle marketing shows that 68 percent of all consumers have made a purchase that stemmed from a brand email in the last three months – and YES, this does include professional services, not just products. That number is likely to continue growing too, as it jumps to 83 percent with Millennials, who are slowly becoming a larger share of the people making purchasing decisions.

There are lots of different angles to take in an email campaign, but none is more effective than a discount. Ninety-two percent of people find some sort of discount as an important driver to making a purchase from an email. How does that translate for us, in the AEC industry though? We don’t run specials on design services. The point is simply to provide an incentive to act NOW. Perhaps that is waiving a small consultation fee or throwing in an additional perk, it still accomplishes the goal of giving your potential customer a sense of urgency and the feeling they’re getting something extra.

Just behind discounts is the reputation of your brand, which is an important factor for 90 percent of people. Have you won any awards for your work recently? Your mailing list should know about that! Finish a kitchen renovation you are particularly proud of? That’s a great way to build up that reputation and brand awareness. But remember, be sure to segment your list. The whole idea of a mailing list is to get a singular message out to a large number of people, but the occasional message to a handful of potential customers with personalized recommendations can be a huge step in gaining that sought after brand loyalty.

Finally, one big way that you can use your email list is, establishing yourself as a thought leader. This is probably the most effective email marketing tactic for B2B firms. Whether you’re sending out a free guide, white paper, or a unique energy use study, it doesn’t matter; anything of value that you can offer will go a long way in building up the idea that you are THE firm to talk to. Additionally, it makes the people on your list want to open your mail in the first place. After all, you are providing them information that might help their business.

Now, as for WHEN to send your emails, it will depend on your audience and the type of list you have. While past research from sources like mailchimp say open rates are best during the middle of the week and the middle of the day, this data may be shifting. Consider your list and the type of email addresses you likely have. With a heavily personal email list (perhaps of target residential design clients) you should be aiming for early in the morning or sometime in the evening. Because while most people are constantly monitoring email throughout the day, these two times are when people are more likely to open promotional personal messages. The closer to those times you are, the closer you’ll be to the top of their inbox when they are ready to open it. For professional communications going to a list of mostly work email addresses, it’s likely that mailchimp’s data still stands. Timing your emails wisely prevents you from getting lost at the bottom of the inbox, where you will likely never be seen. And after all of the hard work you’ve done just to get that email out, that’s the last thing you want.

In today’s world, having an internet presence is an absolute necessity. But just HAVING a site is no longer the bare minimum; having a GOOD one is. Here are a few things to look at when evaluating your website.

Overall attractive layout

Your website is the store front of this century; how it looks impacts what people think of you and whether they want to do business with you. Just how important are aesthetics? An Adobe study found that 38 percent of people will leave a company’s website if they think the website’s layout is unattractive. And having people leave your site before they even learn about you is the last thing you want. Speaking of which…

“About Us” page

Once on your page, over half of all visitors will want to go to some sort of “About Us” page. Things like your firm history and personal bios are a great way to help your visitor learn about you and feel more connected. Contact information should also be readily available, as well (either on this page or a separate one). Email addresses, phone number, social media accounts — providing as much information as you can is a great way to distinguish yourself from other websites. In fact, over half of the respondents in a KoMarketing study said that “thorough contact information” is the most important thing missing from many websites.

How does it look on mobile devices?

The average adult spends 5.6 hours on the Internet, but over half (3.1 hours) of it is on a mobile device of some kind. So to them, it doesn’t matter how gorgeous your site may look on a desktop if it looks like trash on a mobile device. If you have fancy bells and whistles on your site, make sure they don’t show up as broken links and poorly scaled images on a phone or tablet. Beyond how it looks, it’s important to also remember that sites are now becoming penalized by major search engines for not being mobile responsive. If your firm’s web strategy didn’t include mobile before, it should now!

How easy is it to navigate?

If you have a logo at the top of your page, does that double as a “home” button? If not, then it should. How about your tabs/dropdown menus? How easy are those to use? Internet users are incredibly fickle, and if your site is hard to navigate, people will leave. Remember, just because something seems easy to find to you, that doesn’t mean it is for everyone else. After all, you did make the site. Try asking a friend or close client to find information on your site and see if they find it just as easily.

Making the rounds this past week was the announcement from StatCounter Global Stats that for the first time, mobile and tablet usage combined to exceed website usage on desktops/laptops. That is “kind of a big deal.” DEFINITELY. But, before you start scrambling and thinking that your website is trash and needs to be completely redesigned to only be optimal for pocket-sized viewing, here are five things to remember.

This data takes into account broad website usage all across the web, all across the globe. As their data shows, usage in the USA is very different from usage in India. The most important factor in website design is knowing your user/target audience.

Remember the type of information your website is traveled for. The vast majority of architecture firm websites see about 3 pages visited per user, unless they are heavy content producers with active blogs. What are your top pieces of content, and why? Are they pieces of content easily digestible on a small screen? If not, you may not only want to focus on responsive design, but also examine your content practices.

Social media is a large traffic driver and makes up for a significant portion of mobile traffic.In fact, for 90% of our clients, social media is their top referral traffic source. In addition to brushing up your website, be sure your social media accounts are active and focused on driving people to your best content.

View this data through the lens of our industry. It is true that mobile is increasingly important, but are people spending twenty minutes at a time viewing your architecture firm’s portfolio on their iphone? Likely not. If you are prioritizing your mobile and tablet layout, take into account the likely reason that someone would visit your site on their phone. Need some reinforcement for your assumptions? Check your Google Analytics for top pages with an added filter to see which ones are the top mobile performers.

Give a high priority to a well-organized homepage. There is a lot to be said for a beautiful first impression, but remember that your homepage needs to be more than a pretty splash page for a number of reasons – SEO and user experience being two of them. Bring at least a little bit of content on to your homepage that may be useful to a mobile user like contact info or the latest blog posts so they won’t have to sift through expandable menus so much.

]]>http://markitectureconsulting.com/2016/11/07/how-is-your-firm-impacted-mobile-and-tablet-usage-surpassed-desktop-usage-in-october-2016/feed/0Top Five Myths about SEO in the A/E Industryhttp://markitectureconsulting.com/2016/05/10/top-five-myths-about-seo-in-the-architecture-and-engineering-industry/
http://markitectureconsulting.com/2016/05/10/top-five-myths-about-seo-in-the-architecture-and-engineering-industry/#respondTue, 10 May 2016 19:32:07 +0000http://markitectureconsulting.com/?p=966Long ago, SEO had a mystique. It was new and technical and allowed anybody to take the lead in search results. It sometimes even led to deceptive practices like hidden keywords in the background or in the footer of your web pages. My how times have changed though, and having an optimized website isn’t about chunking a bunch of metadata into your source code any longer. Search engines are smarter and our understanding of SEO has evolved, especially for service firms like those of us in the A/E industry. In order to help clear up some confusion, we pulled together a Top Five Myths about SEO in the A/E Industry for you!

Myth 1 – SEO can be done in a bubble

It can’t, not well anyway. Search Engine Optimization has ties to almost every major question at the foundation of your business and marketing plan when it’s done properly. In order for it to be successful for any sustainable amount of time, there has to be a strategy behind it and that strategy has to rely on other marketing efforts, social media and valuable content. That’s why when firms ask us if we do SEO, our answer is typically a bit complicated.

Myth 2 – SEO requires no effort from staff

This is a great follow up to the point above. Often firms hire an SEO company thinking, “All I want is to be at the top when somebody Googles best architecture firm. Done, send me the bill.” Firm leadership later gets frustrated to find out it isn’t that simple and realistically, that’s not even what they need. At a minimum, significant time should be invested up front to determine what terms are even relevant for the firm. Beyond that, however, the to-do list for firm principals, subject matter experts and marketing staff could continue to grow because if you multiply any number by zero, you still get zero. You can’t optimize what doesn’t exist, so firms with small websites and very little content will always struggle to outperform others who invest time in writing.

Myth 3 – SEO is a silver bullet

Many firms contact us with the hopes that if they achieve the Holy Grail of SEO status – First organic result on Google – that their work is done and the leads will just roll in. Unfortunately, neither of those is true. The work is not done, because rankings change every day. Leads also don’t just roll in because of your Google ranking; potential clients have to find what they’re looking for after they click through to take the next step.

Myth 4 – SEO winning = First place

Who doesn’t want to be number one? But we’re not talking about “also ran” or participation trophies. Increased traffic, improved awareness and eventual conversions are the ACTUAL goals behind any SEO effort. Seeing your A/E firm show up in the number one spot may feel great, but looking at analytics and monitoring your traffic are the only way to know if your efforts are successful. And then what? Increased traffic doesn’t equal a new contract for your firm unless you convert – which isn’t about SEO, it’s about marketing and BD.

Myth 5 – SEO firms are a rip-off

I’ve honestly lost count of how many clients and potential clients have called us to say they paid an SEO firm for nothing, zero results. This post may sound a little anti-SEO, but that’s not at all the intention. The point is, you wouldn’t take your car to the shop to get the brakes fixed then be upset with the mechanic for not putting gas in your car every week or two afterwards. Search Engine Optimization is a task you can take care of on your own or pay for (one-time fee or ongoing retainer), but it should only be one portion of your architecture firm’s marketing strategy and without putting a little gas in the tank yourself, your car is only going to get so far.

]]>http://markitectureconsulting.com/2016/05/10/top-five-myths-about-seo-in-the-architecture-and-engineering-industry/feed/0How Marketing Delivers Loyaltyhttp://markitectureconsulting.com/2016/03/01/how-marketing-delivers-loyalty/
http://markitectureconsulting.com/2016/03/01/how-marketing-delivers-loyalty/#respondTue, 01 Mar 2016 21:03:46 +0000http://markitectureconsulting.com/?p=961In a recent marketing presentation on metrics, I opened with a slide titled “We Don’t Deliver Pizza, But We Do Deliver Loyalty.” Coupled with a few bullet points and a screengrab of a popular pizza delivery app, the slide drew some chuckles and it began an important dialogue. The purpose of the slide was to say, that while A/E marketers can’t offer coupons and BOGO specials, we have much more in common with consumer marketers than many people think. This may be hard to imagine, but let me explain.

It is incredibly common in our industry to assume that repeat business and referrals have nothing to do with marketing and everything to do with great service, top-notch design…pretty much anything on the billable side. I like to call it the Word of Mouth Myth. This myth basically says that word of mouth is not related to marketing and therefore cannot be influenced by marketing efforts. Either people will refer you or they won’t, and it’s solely based on performance. I’d like to use the pizza delivery industry as an example to show why this is wrong.

My family likes pizza. We have ordered it more than once of course, and when we do there are a number of options for us to choose from. Now, if I apply the thinking that many people in the A/E industry use regarding marketing, I would only order based on my prior experience and the advice of my friends. No amount of marketing from a new pizza company would change my mind. Additionally, and more importantly, no amount of marketing from my current, favorite pizza company would make a bit of difference either.

However, we know this isn’t true. Brand awareness, repetition and ongoing marketing campaigns are all incredibly powerful drivers for our decisions. Email marketing, branded boxes, mailings, commercials, car signs and more are not just ways for us to learn about other pizza places, they are ways to keep us thinking about our favorite one, over and over and over again. Every ad or flyer aren’t intended to get me to order right away, but they are intended to for me to make the right choice when I’m ready to order!

There are a few reasons why it is difficult to see marketing in the A/E industry in this same light. One of them is time. The buying cycle is far, far longer for an architecture client than it is for a hungry family. Therefore, it’s easy to dismiss marketing efforts as ineffective in driving action when in actuality what’s really happening is that firms are not keeping up the campaigns long enough. What may seem to be a failure was actually just ended too soon.

Another reason is a lack of comprehensive metrics. Consumer marketers kind of “have it easy” in that way. If they run a BOGO deal, they can tell quickly if people start buying. In the A/E world, we have to develop more ways to track success throughout the sales funnel because we don’t have many opportunities for a direct response and purchase to occur simultaneously. Simple calls to action to download, read more or join our list need to not only be measured individually, but also tied together so that the overall interaction with a particular client is captured over years instead of one email or event at a time. It is great that John Q. Client opened our last email, but effective marketing metrics should let me know that John opened three of our last six emails, showed up to both of our events and downloaded our whitepaper on IPD. Is this realistic to keep up with for every client? No, but that’s why strategic direction comes into play when it is time to prioritize our efforts!

When we start viewing A/E marketing from this perspective, one where our efforts aren’t just designed to drive new contracts but to engage all audiences and build loyalty, we start to see just how important marketing is. Marketing then becomes a complementary activity to project work, because the entire firm becomes responsible (and gets credit) for repeat business and referral generation.

]]>http://markitectureconsulting.com/2016/03/01/how-marketing-delivers-loyalty/feed/0The Two Times Marketing Should Be a Priority for Your Firmhttp://markitectureconsulting.com/2015/06/03/the-two-times-marketing-should-be-a-priority-for-your-firm/
http://markitectureconsulting.com/2015/06/03/the-two-times-marketing-should-be-a-priority-for-your-firm/#respondWed, 03 Jun 2015 16:28:47 +0000http://markitectureconsulting.com/?p=956Throughout the years, I’ve had countless conversations with A/E firms about the right times to market. I don’t mean on the micro level like, “What time of day is the best time to tweet?” I mean on the macro level like, “We are a little slow right now so we figured we should market our firm a bit.”

So, I thought a brief post about the best times to market would be helpful. Below are the two absolute best times to market your architecture, engineering or construction firm.

When you’re busy.

When you’re not busy.

Yep, pretty much always. Marketing should be a priority year-round for your firm. Your campaign direction may change, your media may change, but a focus on marketing isn’t something that should come and go when you get the free time. Marketing is a long-term business process that builds a foundation of awareness for your firm, your team, your expertise…it isn’t just a one-time lead generation exercise when work is slow. (Lead generation is a part of marketing, but it’s more like the end result of successfully doing a number of marketing and communications activities.)

Do you pay employees every once in a while, when you have the free time? Or do you process payroll regularly as a part of managing your firm?

Marketing is just as necessary as paying bills to run a successful firm, but may not happen if you don’t get it on the schedule and build your expectations around the time that has to be dedicated to it – time from yourself, your billable employees, or even your marketing team that may spend the bulk of their time responding to RFPs.

]]>http://markitectureconsulting.com/2015/06/03/the-two-times-marketing-should-be-a-priority-for-your-firm/feed/0Using Google’s Keyword Planner to Better Understand SEOhttp://markitectureconsulting.com/2015/03/20/using-googles-keyword-planner-to-better-understand-seo/
http://markitectureconsulting.com/2015/03/20/using-googles-keyword-planner-to-better-understand-seo/#respondFri, 20 Mar 2015 16:28:03 +0000http://markitectureconsulting.com/?p=950We’re excited to announce the first in our new series of brief video tips for architects and engineers. We’re looking forward to posting a number of short, helpful videos highlighting online tools and tricks that can help firms improve their marketing, online presence and SEO.

Today’s video is focused on understanding a little more about what it means to optimize your site for searches based on looking at the what people are actually searching for! We are taking a look at Google’s Keyword Planner tool and highlighting how simple word choice changes make big impacts on search results and your architecture firm’s SEO strategy! Have questions? Leave them in the comments and we’ll address them or post more videos!